About KNOrr®

OUR HISTORY

1800 –

Carl Heinrich Knorr is born on May 15, at Meerdorf near Braunschweig, Germany, the son of a schoolteacher. In school, he studies commerce and afterwards he becomes a wholesaler of agricultural produce.

1838 -

C. H. Knorr builds a factory in Heilbronn for the purpose of drying and grinding chicory for the coffee trade. With the spread of industrialization, C. H. Knorr realizes the need for a quickly prepared and nutritious meal among factory workers.

He starts experimenting with drying vegetables and flavorful seasonings. In cooperation with nutritional experts, he develops a preservation process to maintain the natural values of the ingredients and their flavors and also reduce their cooking times. This knowledge is the basis for the development of the dried soups.

1873 -

The Knorr® Company begins packaging and selling soup mixes in food shops. Founder Carl Heinrich Knorr dies in Germany two years later.

1889 -

The Knorr Company introduces the “Erbswurst”, another convenience product. It is seasoned pea soup concentrate packed in a sausage casing, which can be eaten dry or, more likely, added to boiling water to make soup. This product became very popular due to its light weight and easy preparation. By 1900, this product is available in 40 varieties.

1899 -

C.H. KNORR A.G. becomes a public company. The net value placed on the firm is 2.5 million marks and the company employed 800 people. During the following years, until World War I, new products are introduced such as the first European sauce mix (1908) and the bouillon cube (1912). 40 varieties.

1948 –

One of the first measures of the turnaround is the substitution of the liquid brown seasoning with Glutamate. This eliminates the former factory taste and makes the soup a true competitor to homemade soups. In addition, cooking times for the products are reduced from 30 to 5-10 minutes and the old cardboard package was replaced with a new hermetically sealed aluminium pouch that protects the product against humidity and other strange taste influences.

After implementing these changes, the chicken noodle soup is launched with a phenomenal success of 6.4 million servings sold during the first 7 months after the introduction.

1953 –

AROMAT seasoning mix is introduced to the market, and in the next few years many other new product recipes for soups, sauces and bouillons followed.

By 1957, the flagship Knorr® products - bouillons, soups, sauces and entrée mixes - were available in eight countries around the world.

2000 –

Knorr® products are sold in 87 countries around the world. In October, Unilever becomes the new owner of the Knorr® brand.

2004 –

Despite all the changes that have taken place throughout the years, the Heilbronn factory is still the beating heart of Knorr®, where a team of Knorr® Chefs makes sure that good food remains at the top of the agenda.